Ass-Kicking
I need a change of scenery. I'm sick of the 10 mile radius that's become my universe. And I'm bored with the cordiality of daily life. I wish someone would stand up and tell the truth about something. Anything.
"How you doing?"
"I'm good, man. How about you?"
Over a million words in the English language and everyone uses the same ten. Why is everyone so afraid to be seen?
What I need, but can't afford, is Big Sur. That place is a tonic to me. It's as overpriced as where I am, but at least the estates include caretaker homes. And since most of the caretakers are natives, there's a blend of pedigrees. I dated a woman who lived there once, and it was common to attend a dinner with Academy Award winners and immigrants debating the best way to design a terrace garden. The dependence upon each other in that kind of wilderness forces an omission of titles, and everyone's value becomes equal.
If you think I'm romanticizing, go see for yourself. Exorbitant wealth in terrain that's hard to survive, or maintain homes in, is measured by how well you inhabit the place. A person's role there is defined by their ability to outlive what its natural disasters try to destroy. When you admit who actually needs who, paying for those who can't pay for themselves becomes an agreeable mandate.
It's impossible to be there and not swap truths with someone, usually a stranger. It's like a huge wilderness rave where everyone's desperate for touch, or exposition. Something happens that makes everyone's story required telling, and the listening urgent. Every time I've been there I've experienced a shift. Maybe it's spiritual, or psychological. Maybe it's the wind, I'm not sure. But there's movement. Every time.
I think what I'm wanting is a challenge. I want to
If you think I'm romanticizing, go see for yourself. Exorbitant wealth in terrain that's hard to survive, or maintain homes in, is measured by how well you inhabit the place. A person's role there is defined by their ability to outlive what its natural disasters try to destroy. When you admit who actually needs who, paying for those who can't pay for themselves becomes an agreeable mandate.
It's impossible to be there and not swap truths with someone, usually a stranger. It's like a huge wilderness rave where everyone's desperate for touch, or exposition. Something happens that makes everyone's story required telling, and the listening urgent. Every time I've been there I've experienced a shift. Maybe it's spiritual, or psychological. Maybe it's the wind, I'm not sure. But there's movement. Every time.
I think what I'm wanting is a challenge. I want to
put myself in a place that's unpredictable, and a
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| Big Sur Fashion Show |
bit hostile. And not the ex-wife- kind-of-ridiculous-habit-hostile. I want to be in the presence of someone, or something, with an intolerance for civility. Somewhere that threatens to pounce if a conditioned response breaks your lips- "Hey, how ya..." WHAM!! POW!!! THUMP!!!! CRACK!!! BAM!!!! POW!!!!- Somewhere that's raw enough and wild enough and inspiring enough to demand the same from you.
Big.
Sur.
Exercise in Etiquette
Don't get me wrong, this place is beautiful, but it's beautiful the way a contestant in the Miss America Pageant is: made up, and presented. You know what you're getting everywhere you go, and if you don't want some of something you stay away from the place that has it. Santa Cruz hasn't felt like Santa Cruz since the last hippie surfer turned his VW bus south, and vanished.
Somewhere, right around the infusion of dot-com cash, this town stopped being a town and became an awkward version of suburbia. Santa Cruz used to be synonymous with tolerance, and diversity, but every color except two have been inched out, and the two that remain abide by an unwritten social agreement that closely resembles landowner-peasant. Guys like me don't count.
Aptos, at the south end, has become a self-appointed enclave of middle of the road homogeneity. It was kind of blue collar decades ago. The incomes, and social politics of a majority of its residents will insure its future. As long as people believe you can buy the ocean, and that all property is for sale, only the wealthiest among us will truly enjoy it. There's an unspoken parameter on the variance of opinion here, and if you voice yours outside of it, well, just consider yourself invisible. Needless to say, I'm very hard to see.
It's beginning to feel schizophrenic.
In the Stars
*That's where I left off before driving to Moss Landing today to write in a coffee shop, where I looked at my horoscope in the Weekly:AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): You have been a pretty decent student lately, Aquarius. The learning curve was steep, but you mastered it as well as could be expected. You had to pay more attention to the intricate details than you liked, which was sometimes excruciating, but you summoned the patience to tough it out. Congrats! Your against-the-grain effort was worth it. You are definitely smarter now than you were four weeks ago. But you are more wired, too. More stressed. In the next chapter of your life story, you will need some downtime to integrate all you’ve absorbed. I suggest you schedule some sessions in a sanctuary where you can relax more deeply than you’ve allowed yourself to relax in a while.
I think what I'm getting at with all this is: Santa Cruz is no longer my home.
I've known that for awhile, and have been prepping my sons for a departure that coincides with their successful completion of high school. That's if I'm still living. The Sierra's appeal to me, as does Big Sur. And Mexico. New and old.
Ultimately, I want to revisit something more primal. I want to be in a place where the choice between camaraderie, and solitude, is absolute. I want to inhabit a space where it's safe to fall in love again, and not worry about my partner being side-swiped by disapproval, or stalked by wild hens.
It may sound odd, but this exercise in risk, in putting what I have to say out for anyone to see, has provided the deepest healing I've ever known.
Those of you who read these, and go out of your way to share your thoughts, are in my ranks of saviors. You muted the voices of others.
Those of you in Germany and Belgium and Russia who randomly clicked on a post reminded me how large the world is, and that not every geography is hostile.
And those of you that have explored other facets of my web persona, all 120,000 of you, saved my life in a way (or what life I have left). You let me know that being unemployed in a 300 square foot studio is far from being alone.
If this post has a purpose, it's to thank everyone I'll never know for resuscitating me.
The best part of living is the people.
